1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cameras for mounting in motor vehicles, and more particularly, to a vehicle-mounted type of camera suitable for use as a front-view camera to acquire images of objects present in a frontward direction of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicle-mounted types of cameras have come to be applied to vehicle-mounted systems for assisting safety driving of the vehicle in which the system is mounted, surveillance systems for detecting abnormalities and the intrusion of unwelcome persons, and other systems. Such a vehicle-mounted type of camera can process an image that the camera mounted in a vehicle has acquired, and use this processed image to extract images of on-road lane markings, traffic signposts, road markings, the immediately preceding vehicle, the opposing vehicle, persons, and the like.
Several vehicle-mounted types of image-processing cameras are available to extract various pieces of information from an image. Typical known examples include a type mounted either on a front rail or rearview mirror of a vehicle interior or on the interior side of the vehicle's windshield to monitor forward, a type mounted near the rear bumper of a vehicle to monitor the rear thereof, and a type mounted on, for example, a front rail or a steering column to monitor the driver or other passengers. U.S. Pat. No. 6,392,218, for example, describes one such camera. Also, stereo cameras are available for highly accurate detection of three-dimensional objects on the road. JP-A-2003-335180, for example, describes, as one such known example, a stereo camera system in which one pair of images acquired in advance with two image acquisition devices are used to recognize a desired object by calculating the distance to the object.